A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. (Matthew 5: 14)

Christiania was founded 1971, when a group of squatters occupied the former Bådsmandsstræde army barracks in Copenhagen, and decided to create an alternative community.  Its ideals were born out of the boom in living standards and materialism that followed the rebuilding of Europe after World War II. This led to a feeling with many people during the 1960s and 1970s that there had to be more to life than just consumerism, giving rise to the hippy movement. Their searching for a better alternative became a prophetic challenge to Western society that had increasingly turned its back on God. Sadly, in Christiania, many people have been drawn to eastern and native spirituality, rather than seeing Jesus as the answer.

Since its founding in 1971, Christiania has become extremely well-known in Denmark and abroad. It is a place of great creativity - especially in art and music - but is also infamous for being the centre of the drugs trade in Scandinavia. As a result, events in Christiania often become national news. Likewise, some of what happens in Christiania later becomes normal practice in Denmark, so Christiania regularly sets trends that are adopted by the rest of the country. For example, the sale of hash is now widespread in Denmark, while New Age spirituality has likewise become commonplace.

We are conscious that God has planted a church to shine His saving light in Christiania.

Why the name Christiania?

A good name is better than fine perfume… (Ecclesiastes 7:1)

There are a number of urban legends about how the name Christiania came into being when the free state was founded in 1971. Without commenting on these, we believe that this name was ordained by Almighty God Yahweh, as indicated by both of its classical meanings.

In Latin, place names ending with the suffix -ia are a contraction of ‘terra ____ia’ where -ia is the correct ending for an adjective describing a feminine noun - in this case terra (earth/country). Thus Christiania would be a contraction of ‘Terra Christiania’, and could loosely mean ‘the Christian place’ in Latin.

In Greek, IA is the shorthand form of the Jewish/Christian God's Hebrew name YHWH (pronounced Yahweh) as the Greek alphabet that uses the letter "I" called "iota" for the Y sound. The Greeks inserted Yahweh’s name at the end of many nouns to assert that He was the creator of everything, so the suffix literally means "of God" or "belonging to God". Thus Christiania could loosely mean ‘the Christian(s) who belong to God’ in Greek.

We believe that God has a prophetic purpose for Christiania, to be a place and people dedicated to him, and that its name is a demonstration of this.